Specialists of the Shared Access Additive Technology Center (SADTC), which was created with the support of Rosatom on the basis of Tomsk Polytechnic University, designed and 3D-printed the first lot of tooling for the manufacture of complex components of medical equipment, e.i. urological extractor baskets.
Urological extractors are actively used in the treatment of urolithiasis and cholelithiasis to capture and extract stones. The tooling is used to make the trap basket, the part of the extractor that is used to capture and extract the stone. Tooling for the manufacture of urological extractor baskets must have certain characteristics: not to oxidize when heated up to 500 degrees, have low heat capacity, withstand repeated cycles of heating and cooling.
The use of 3D printing has made it possible to produce high-quality tooling much faster, unlike traditional methods that require the use of fine turning and milling. If using the traditional method, each part is made separately, and the process takes about two to three hours. Whereas 3D printing can produce a lot of 150 toolings in 24 hours. In addition, using a printer makes the process more economical; the cost per part is reduced by about half when compared to traditional methods.
The first lot of tooling has been printed from nickel-based metal powder on the RusMelt 300M printer which is manufactured at the Rosatom’s Fuel Division enterprises and makes it possible to create complex parts with high precision using selective laser melting (SLM) technology. The products went to medical institutions in Omsk, Perm, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Nadym and other cities.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time a heat-resistant alloy 3D printer has been used to create such tooling. So it was a definite challenge for the SADTC team. The engineering task was successfully solved, we received feedback from the customer, worked out heat-resistant alloy printing modes, tested the printer and made sure of its high technical characteristics,” Evgeny Bolbasov, Head of the Tomsk Polytechnic’s SADTC said.
